Funnyjunk Lawyer Being Mocked Mercilessly, Makes Things Worse By Trying To Shut Down The Oatmeal's Fundraiser

from the stop-digging dept

As the famous saying goes, when you are in a hole, stop digging. Someone might want to send that message to lawyer Charles Carreon, who has (legitimately) worked on some good cases in the past. However, for reasons that are confusing even his friends, he seems to be trying to respond to a big mistake by hinting at an even bigger one. As you have probably heard -- since it's all over the freaking internet -- there's a little fight going on between funny webcomic site The Oatmeal (and its creator Matthew Inman) and the not very funny aggregator of things that people claim are funny site, Funnyjunk. You can read our take on the mess, if you'd like.

The summary version is that Inman got annoyed at people posting his comics on Funnyjunk and spoke out publicly about it (to be honest, his statements seemed to be an overreaction and include lots of silly statements about "stealing" that aren't particularly accurate). However, he was clear that he had no interest in suing or using the law at all. He just wanted to speak his mind and shame the site. Funnyjunk overreacted back... and then waited a while before doubling (or perhaps tripling) down on its overreaction by hiring Carreon to send Inman a letter threatening a lawsuit on a bunch of claims, nearly all of which appear to be totally bogus (the defamation claim is the main one, which is simply ridiculous, but there's also an absolutely crazy trademark claim that seems to suggest that Inman's opinion of Funnyjunk is "false advertising"), as well as demanding $20,000. Inman then responded in true internet fashion, by posting the letter with his thoughts interspersed and (most importantly) setting up a fundraiser at IndieGogo to try to raise $20,000, not to pay off Funnyjunk, but to donate to charity. And it came included with a marginally NSFW drawing involving a mother (apparently "Funnyjunk's") and a bear. You've probably seen it by now.

Anyway, somewhere along the way the Streisand Effect took over, and the whole thing went viral. Now, as we've learned in previous Streisand Effect situations, this is the point at which the person who overreacted begins to recognize how badly they screwed up and how they've made things a lot worse. And then they apologize and grovel or something along those lines -- and we chalk up another hash mark on the big scoreboard on the internet showing how social pressure and the court of public opinion can keep excessive legal threats in check.

But, of course, there are always some people who can't stop digging. In fact, I would guess that the people who often find themselves on the wrong end of the Streisand Effect are probably slightly more prone to excessive-digging in response to said Effect, because the type of person who doesn't really know the Streisand Effect is about to hit them is likely the kind of person who doesn't realize that continuing to dig doesn't get one out of a hole.

And, here, it appears that Carreon has failed to stop digging. He spoke to MSNBC and said a few things so stupid that he might want to have someone who is more internet native act as a filter prior to talking to the press in the future about these sorts of things. Here's the big one:

He also explains that he believes Inman's fundraiser to be a violation of the terms of service of IndieGoGo, the website being used to collect donations, and has sent a request to disable the fundraising campaign. (The fundraising website has only responded with an automated message so far.)

"I don't think that what I did was unreasonable," Carreon says while discussing the initial demands sent to Inman. He tells me that while this situation is unique, he is typically open to negotiation. He ended the conversation with a promise to keep me updated on how things are resolved and on whether he takes any legal action against the folks who have been harassing him since Inman's "BearLove Good Cancer Bad" fundraising campaign started.

Yes. A large portion of the internet hates you... and your response is to threaten to shut down a massively successful fundraiser for the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society? Really? Is that really the smartest response to the situation?

Then there's this:

"I'm completely unfamiliar really with this style of responding to a legal threat -- I've never really seen it before," Carreon explains.

Indeed, I don't think anyone is quite familiar with the full extent of Inman's response, but for a lawyer who plays up his connections to various internet-related lawsuits, you would think Carreon would have, perhaps, spent some time on the internet. And the internet, in general, is not a fan of bogus legal threats. There's a pretty long history of that, and it shouldn't have been that hard to predict that this threat would backfire.

Either way, as another day goes by, one hopes that Carreon's more level-headed friends will suggest that it may be time to ditch the shovel.

Assume I am on a side ?.....wrong

""cried like a baby...unwarranted self importance... buying public opinion (wtf is that?)""

That is what you call.... true

1.) "cried like a baby"
"funnyjunk steal my images"
"makes a comic berating funnyjunks business and it's users"
"your admin is a moron who chooses his words about as carefully as a mule chooses where to take a shit. "" Irony ?
"stolen images"
"I just wanted my stolen comics removed "
etc.... general crying

Re: Research B4 U regurgitate

No - he told his readers that his content will pop up on funnyjunk in no-time (if he uses DMCA). He never asserted funnyjunk ignores dmca requests.

aaand:
1. "cried like a baby": so every blog is crying? "I had a bad day" ---> pussy!
Try again.
2. "unwarranted self importance": Fail by default (opinion of a bad troll? Who cares.)
3. "buying public opinion": his readers are influenced by his opinion, sure. I don't see that as buying. Nobody does, except maybe for Carreon. And you, if you actually believe your words.

You sound like that 12 years old admin - hoping to turn public opinion with bad trolling - #gullible

(see what I did there?)

ps: Oh and you should read up on irony since you obviously don't know what it is.

Re: level-headed friends ??

Click the link for the article at popehat.com and scroll to the end where Marc Randazza provided input on Mr. Carreon. The second (ammended) comment is beyond epic (albeit vulgar) and I quote:

Holy fucking shitballs inside a burning biplane careening toward the Statue of Liberty, Captain! I hope that the reporter merely got the story wrong, because if not, that's more fucked up than a rhino raping a chinchilla while dressed up in unicorns' undergarments.

Inman is a genius for his creative offerings. Maybe not so much for his responses to bogus threats. Can't fault him for that. He's not an attorney. And as a rant specialist, I know the lure of going to far in a rant. So I suspect that was the cause of his "over the top" response.

In any case, lawyers sure are dumb. And that's hilarious given how much schooling they have to pay for. :-)

Re:

He probably thought all of TechDirt and the anti-SOPA crowd would rise up to support this law suit. After all of these years about hearing that copying information is "innovation", he probably thought he was filing a law suit to defend all of the innovation and everyone would jump to his side.

Re: Re: Re:

This might actually be worse than the time he couldn't follow the sarcasm in comments about that sharing religion in Sweden, Kopimism. He though everyone literally wanted to be the 'sharing pope' or a 'deacon of dissemination' because in the world according to paywallbob that's something people in the 'sharing crowd' would literally go out and strive to be. It's completely comical at this point.

What do you expect from the leeches?

I love how everyone thinks that the people who "share" content are all mellow. Those guns Kim Dotcom had were probably made of plastic. If the "sharing" crowd were really fine, upstanding people they wouldn't be relying on someone else to do the work to populate their web site. So now we see the real underbelly of the "sharing" crowd who are willing to use any legal measure they can to ensure that they get content for their websites without paying the hard working creator.

Everyone around here has polished off too much of the Kool Aid. The lawyer has probably read too much TechDirt and he wants to frame the cartoonist as one of those evil branches of the RIAA or MPAA, out to censor the world. It sure seems like the lawyer is a member of the Kool Aid drinking tribe because Mike says he's worked on some legit cases in the past.

Suddenly Mike is caught in a logical conundrum. Lawsuits are supposed to be evil because, well, I'm not sure but apparently we're not supposed to defend our rights unless they're rights blessed by Big Search. But suddenly the lawsuit is being threatened by the Big Search acolyte, eager to ensure his free content supply isn't shut off!

Is your brain hurting? It should be if you drink too much of this web site's Kool Aid. Isn't leeching off someone else's hard work supposed to be innovation? Isn't it a fair and noble act to infringe? If so, shouldn't we be able to sue anyone who questions our right to just take what isn't ours?

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

> If the "sharing" crowd were really fine, upstanding people they wouldn't be relying on someone else to do the work to populate their web site.

Yeah, we really shouldn't be relying on posting hyperlinks to other sites or images we fancy to make a point on Facebook.

> The lawyer has probably read too much TechDirt and he wants to frame the cartoonist as one of those evil branches of the RIAA or MPAA

Inman has done nothing remotely close to the RIAA's modus operandi. He hasn't gone after individual users or threatened to shut down the site. At best he's made a mockery of it. Your anti-TechDirt shilltail is showing.

> Isn't leeching off someone else's hard work supposed to be innovation? Isn't it a fair and noble act to infringe? If so, shouldn't we be able to sue anyone who questions our right to just take what isn't ours?

Clearly you haven't been reading up on the case. Funnyjunk users were proven to have removed Inman's attributions on his own work. Inman requested takedowns, and suddenly Funnyjunk users were in an uproar insisting that Inman was demanding Funnyjunk's takedown. On the other hand, for every "pirate" copy of software, music or games, no one has ever claimed that the original was created by whatever release or warez group that released it. Your point is stupid, as always.

Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Of course the Funnyjunk users removed the attribution because they're fine, upstanding people. Artists are just vain, egotistical jerks who need to have their work stolen for their own good.

And they probably thought that they were fighting the good fight against censorship with this law suit. All the Funnyjunk leeches probably thought they could paint this cartoonist as another RIAA or MPAA for even daring to question their "right" to take whatever they can.

It doesn't look like it's working out that way. I'm just enjoying Mike punish the copyright-sucks crowd, albeit with a wet noodle.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

> Artists are just vain, egotistical jerks who need to have their work stolen for their own good.

Like I've said, you're an idiot if you think that's what's being driven here. Go ahead, find a warez group that's released "The Pirate Bay Photoshop CS5.1".

> And they probably thought that they were fighting the good fight against censorship with this law suit. All the Funnyjunk leeches probably thought they could paint this cartoonist as another RIAA or MPAA for even daring to question their "right" to take whatever they can.

You, very clearly, have not been following or even reading on the case. Inman made fun of Funnyjunk users' overreaction. Stupidly enough, Funnyjunk decided to overreact even further.

If anything, Funnyjunk is acting very similar to the RIAA.

- Insisting that whatever they're running/have in possession has been devastated several times over, despite that not being the case.
- Insisting that existing law allows them to do things not written in existing law.
- Getting a lot of ridicule, thanks to going on a path competely devoid of goodwill.

Your attempts at sarcasm and digs at this site are pathetic at best, and disingenuous - bordering on slanderous - at worst. But then again, we know how you insisted that John Steele was a fine, upstanding citizen yourself.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

... OK, so apparently I'm a vain, egotistical jerk that needs to have my work stolen for my own good. I'm sorry, but that's NOT0 true about me. Sure I may have an ego but at least I can control it. In fact, I would LOVE to have my work shown elsewhere because, since I'm not making any money off of it (at least for the time being), it'll bring me attention to my work, even if I know it's not linked back to me. If I see my work, then I'm happy to know that people like it, even if they are making fun of it.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Funnyjunk only removed the content after the links were made public. After they removed them, they accused TheOatmeal of outright lying about the links in the first place. How does this make them 'fine, upstanding people,' again?

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

This would be funny if the term weren't so overloaded. The important fact to remember is that Big Search does not want to share any of the ad revenue with the people who created the content. They want to keep it all of themselves so they can spend it on billionaire toys.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

If that were true why would 'big search' do any actual searching. Search itself is one giant service that forwards potential eyeballs to be shown advertising to other people's sites. If they were really so 'greedy' they'd never have been a search site in the first place.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

It's okay when the recording industry does it because they have a signed contract from the artists. This is a prime shill/troll talking point. That or it's just the artists fault for being an idiot and signing, or for having a shitty lawyer, and so on and so forth. Basically it is the way you said it. It's bad when "Big Search" does it, but when the people who claim to speak for the artists against Big Search and the rest of us supposed thieves do it... well, that's okay and excusable.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Rule number 1 at Big Search is never give the creators a dime.

Really? Well first off YouTube's (owned by Google) monetization program seems to do a pretty good job of giving dimes to creators.

And you are also forgetting the other side of that equation - getting ranked higher on Google drives customers to your site. Maybe Google should start charging you for the "advertising" when you show up on thier search results and on the number of views they send to your website.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

This would be funny if it weren't so overloaded. The important fact to remember is that the Illuminati have implanted tracking and mind control devices just under the meat of bob's left butt cheek. They want to control bob to distract from the fact that they control UEFA.

Rule number 1 for Illuminati is to have some nut spout crazy stuff to keep Scotland from winning UEFA.

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Reading the bullshit you spout? Always. At least you didn't start ranting about paywalls this time.

"Lawsuits are supposed to be evil because, well, I'm not sure"

If you actually read the articles and comments, you might understand (hint: well-targeted lawsuits that don't try to replace innovation and adaptation to new markets are perfectly OK).

"It sure seems like the lawyer is a member of the Kool Aid drinking tribe because Mike says he's worked on some legit cases in the past."

"Isn't leeching off someone else's hard work supposed to be innovation? Isn't it a fair and noble act to infringe? If so, shouldn't we be able to sue anyone who questions our right to just take what isn't ours? "

An impressive array of useless strawmen and ad hominem attacks. Don't you get tired of attacking fictional characters instead of the real opinions in front of you?I mean, we're right here, distorting our actual opinions won't work when the people holding those opinions know you're lying.

Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Real opinions? Sure. That lawsuit from Funnyjunk was a strawman. Go on believing that you can just dismiss people who disagree with you by saying they're attacking a strawman.

You're just seeing the true face of the pirate crowd. They'll do anything to keep that flow of unpaid, unlicensed content coming. In this case, the leecher decided to sue, no doubt hoping that the Internet crowd would treat him like an anti-SOPA hero and see the cartoonist as just another RIAA or MPAA.

Face it bud. You're on the side of a lawsuit designed to defend an aging business model-- the business model of a pirate who doesn't want to share any of the ad revenue with the people who do the hard work of creating the content.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

You are stupid. If Inman really wanted to go the whole paywall bob hog he would have gone after every single time someone shared his comics via a hyperlink or image link. (Hey, someone else other than Inman got ad revenue! He's fucked as an artist now, he is!)

If people act like jerks they will be treated as such. Regardless of who it is. You trying to paint this as some "Big Search" failure and link it to some calamity derived from copyright anti-enforcement is failing. Extremely hard.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

"Go on believing that you can just dismiss people who disagree with you by saying they're attacking a strawman."

I believe things where evidence is presented to me, and no other explanation seems reasonable. For example:

"Face it bud. You're on the side..."

You haven't bothered to ask my opinion on this lawsuit. You haven't bothered, in fact, to get my actual opinion on this or any related subject. You attack me as part of the "pirate crowd" despite me stating over and over again (with evidence) that I'm no such thing. You attack what you think my opinion is, without evidence of what that is, you simply assume a position is held and attack that.

In other words, a strawman.

I believe truth, you believe fiction. You'll forgive me if I give my ideas more credence, unless of course you grow some intellectual honestly.

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

>If so, shouldn't we be able to sue anyone who questions our right to just take what isn't ours?

I'd also like you to point out when and where a similar site - or anyone from Big Search, I know how you love to incriminate them - has ever filed such a lawsuit against anyone. Do you really think Google has sued the RIAA?

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Wow... is this one of those "trolls" I keep hearing about? Cool! Can we take it home? Pleeeaassee? It's soooooo cute! I'll put it in a cage and feed it every day and take it for walks and maybe even teach it a new trick if it is smart enough to learn more than one.

Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

It is wonderful to have Mike slap down the creator haters who just want everything for free. But it seems like he's caught himself this time. Suddenly he wants to acknowledge that the lawyer has worked on some good cases in the past.

So it seems like the rules around here are:

1) Never sue anyone.
2) Never pay for content.

But (1) trumps (2). Fascinating. Why bother having the court system at all?

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

I am curious were you get your information from. Do you even read tech dirt or do you make stuff up as you go? Mike has shown that the best solution is a win win solution and has demonstrated that with listing multiple business models that use "Free" in order to make money. The way you rant and make straw men makes it sound like you would rather have a lose lose situation. On the other hand if your goal is trolling the you are doing a good job.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

I read this and then realized that my brain is hurting. From having read such stupidity. bob, I want whatever brain cells you just killed with that moronic (I'm not even going to call it rambling because even rambling eventually has a point that is discernible to someone reading it) whatever it was to be given back. That and the time wasted on trying to find some kind of thing that made sense in that whatever it was.

Also, could you seriously stop saying Big [insert word here]. It's fucking stupid and doesn't mean a thing. A more truthful use of the bob phrase, "Big [etc]" would be something like Big Content. A term I saw in use recently on a reputable technology related article by a reputable author. I'm thinking it was over at BGR this week.

Seriously bob, if you put as much effort into actually thinking things through logically and coming up with facts to support whatever stance you have as you do into apparently being able to pierce the vast conspiracies being unleashed on the world by Big Search and Big Hardware and Big Etc you would first off shock all of us and secondly, and more importantly, actually make a fucking well reasoned and easily understood point.

To summarize, back away from the keyboard until you've either taken your meds or you actually start using that brain that whatever mythical deity you believe in gave you for something other than retarded rantings.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Big Search is 10 times bigger than Big Content.

I think it's pretty telling that a business that's been around less than 15 years is bigger than an industry that's been around over 100 years. Makes me think that they might want to emulate Google and give customers what they want. But no. That's just crazy talk.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

I said "fucking" twice. That is "swear so much" to you? Wow. Poor virgin eared, delusional bob.

"And get a clue."

bob, when you get one first then you can tell others to get a clue. Til then, just stay quiet.

"Big Search is 10 times bigger than Big Content. The biggest Hollywood studios are tiny compared to the market cap of Big Search. Big Search is run by billionaires."

Google and other tech companies might be bigger overall, but that's because they have a much bigger global audience to reach and because they also are pretty much fueling everything. Almost everything nowadays involves technology in one way, shape or form. Be it hardware or software. How is that their fault? They didn't orchestrate any vast globe spanning conspiracy to make people use computers or the internet. What they did do though was take a look at what people needed and wanted and then met those needs/wants.

The biggest Hollywood studios might be tiny compared to the boogeymen you fear exist, yet they wield much more power and influence and have far more sinister intentions than the boogeyman ever has. Or should we discuss who wants the power to monitor everything any of us does on the internet to make sure we're not all thieving pirates? Because I'm pretty sure that is Hollywood studios wanting that, not Big Boogeyman.

"This case shows how the creator is really the little guy in the whole ecosystem."

I still don't know wtf you're talking about. Seriously.

The Oatmeal's content was being used elsewhere with no credit given whatsoever, so they made a comic about it. FunnyJunk overreacted and then did so again when they were mocked for their reaction, thus making their situation worse. FunnyJunk in this case was not the creator and by waving their arms around and shouting hysterics and "defamation" and whatnot have only added fuel to the fire. That fire being them being mocked by the internet for overreacting.

There, I believe I summarized the situation quite accurately and sensibly. Go ahead, read it. Then read it again. And realize nothing you've said so far has even remotely related to the situation at all.

bob wouldn't your time be better off elsewhere? I know for a fact there are quite a few conspiracy theory websites and forums. Go amongst your people. Or start your own. You can rant about Big Search and Big Hardware and Big Piracy and whatnot to your heart's content and maybe find a few like minded (aka "completely delusional") people.

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Uh, this is the Internet... he can swear as much as I could, if I wanted to. We can't all be as "intelligent" with our words as you, bob. Then again, people can use their swears in creative uses, so...

And I'm little? Compare to the size of the Internet, yes that's true. But from what I can remember, it takes one to start something, no matter how small they are. Yeah, don't see how size is a matter here...

Re: Re: Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

It's almost like the site is against frivolous lawsuits in general but then it wouldn't fit into the neat narrative you've constructed where it's about some kind of vast, conspiratorial 'sharing crowd' whatever the fuck that is.

Re: What do you expect from the leeches?

bob, it's come to my attention that you are not only using the Kool-Aid® brand name with out Kraft's® permission, but you are also hurting said brand name and possibly committing defamation by associating Kool-Aid® with a "cult" rather than using the generic term, "flavored drink mix". Please make your $20,000 check out to Kraft Foods® Three Lakes Dr.
Northfield, IL 60093-2753

Re:

Let's assume that they actually win their case and get their $20.000. So what? Their reputation will be forever destroyed (more than it already is) and an extra $20.000 in the bank isn't much of a compensation IMHO.

Given how "vengeful" the Internet is (it doesn't forgive nor forget), I very much doubt that the owners of the site will ever be able to build any sort of meaningful Internet presence. They'll always be "those douchebags that sued the Oatmeal".

Hey Mr. Carreon, this sort of thing happens a couple of times here on the Internet. People here like to make comments about your mother being "a sexual deviant" so it's not like it's nothing new here (though technically it's not YOUR mother). There's a little thing we call "trolling" and if you bait them, they will attack. Right now, you and FunnyJunk aren't in a good position to speak, especially when you're deciding to cancel a charity to both good causes. Really, that's not only pathetic, but really stupid for someone to suggest not allowing a creator to raise money for charity and then donate said money to the causes of his choice.

Welcome to the Internet, where trolls are abound and anything you say can (and might) start a flame wars. Choose your words carefully or get out.

seems to me that this lawyer isn't digging himself a deeper hole, he is actually burying himself in the hole he already dug. stopping now would be the best option before he suffocates himself, but, being a lawyer and lawyers knowing everything about everything, i am sure he will just keep on going until there's no chance of revival! perhaps a good thing?

Hilarious

Wow. Really its human nature right? What I mean is that most of the people(if not everyone) will whine about how they lose potential money to their competitors because they blatantly copied by them. Its reasonable oatmeal complained about this infringement. Personally I think he was not more concerned about the financial damages than the right of his content.

Just wanted to point out...
before all of this mr lawyerman's Wikipedia article was on the chopping block for deletion, someone very "close" to the subject wrote most of the article, and it needed more citations and verifications from reputable sources.

You know why bob is mad that we didn't make Matthew Inman the villain?

Because in bob's eyes, Matthew Inman is the villain. Not only did Matthew Inman have the gall to protest SOPA, he even made a comic about how bob's paywall masters made legitimate products such an ass to get and how directly downloading it proved to be much more convenient. Matthew Inman is the devil to bob and nothing would make him happier than if people started demonising him.